Lyra the Liar: Little Mouse

Out here the world still breathed like it used to. The same leaning birch held its shape despite the fracture, split from lightning years ago, still standing, still scorched black on one side. The rest of the world could fall apart and this place would still hold.

The city’s noise dissolved at the forest’s edge, replaced by the hush of wind slipping through the leaves like quiet secrets overhead. It made the forest feel alive in a way the streets never were.

The damp had soaked through the seat of her coat, but she barely noticed. The roots at the river’s edge had formed a kind of seat, worn smooth from years of runoff and maybe a few others who’d sat here before her. She didn’t imagine them. She just knew the shape of the bark under her palms, cold to the touch.

For a moment as she sat there, book forgotten in her lap and watched the river run cold and fast, stones smooth and oblivious beneath the surface, she pretended that things could still go back to how they were.

Back before the doctrine decided what was safe to feel or say. Before checkpoints sliced the city into pieces and burdens turned life into a debt that had to be repaid. Before the sweeps, when they came at night and took her parents, leaving the house echoing and small. The night she ended up at her brother’s door with nothing but the clothes on her back and shaking hands.

A dragonfly hovered near the edge of the water, wings catching what was left of the light. She watched it flicker and dart away. The sun had vanished faster than she’d realized. Long shadows were already stretching across the trail when she got back on her bike.

Wet leaves in red, gold, and rust blurred beneath the wheels as she peddled the path between the trees. The frame rattled under her like something barely held together. Bolts ticked, pedals clicked and the chain rustled with each bump on the ground. Each vibration rattled up her arms and settled behind her ribs.

She veered into the shortcut, less scenic and even rougher on the wheels. The trail was barely a trail at all. Her fingers tighten around the handlebars as she coasted forward, letting the wind cut against her face until her eyes stung. The birch trees here stood even closer. Their shoulders drawn tight and their arms intertwined above her.

As she peddled through the treacherous path a shape caught her eye just at the edge of her vision. A large contrast against the white trunks. A dark interruption that didn't belong. She hit the brake sharply, sure she must have imagined it. The back wheel fishtailed and mud and leaves kicked up behind her. Her foot hit the ground to steady herself.

She turned back. Slowly.

There, behind the base of a birch, just off the trail the dark shape sat, motionless. Not a trick of light. Not the shadow of the tree. She stood still for a heartbeat. The wind stirred the leaves, but the shape didn’t move.

She slid off her bike, eased down the kickstand with the edge of her boot. Her feet moved soundlessly over the forest floor as she circumvented the tree that shielded the shape from view.

A boot. Streaked with dirt, unmoving…

A hand laying flat by the side, half buried in the leaves…

A face. Partially turned away, blood crusted along the cheekbone in a jagged line.

She stopped a few steps away, her heart beating fast. She would have thought him dead if it weren't for the rapping rising and falling of his exposed torso. The shirt was ripped open revealing a trail of blood along the man's abdomen.

But the gash was not what made her blood run cold, it was the coat pressed against the wound. It was a military issue. No emblem was visible, but the fabric and the weapon at his hip told her everything - A Highmarch enforcer. It was unmistakable.

Her stomach turned. The Highmarch didn’t patrol here. So what was he doing deep in the forest? Was he alone?

She scanned the treeline. No movement. No second figure. No sound but the wind stirring the canopy above, brittle leaves dancing as they were swept away by the autumn breeze. She stepped back, careful not to snap a twig underfoot. Then not far behind her came a sudden metallic whimper. She turned. Her bike gave a final cruel creak before it toppled over.

The handlebars crashed into the dirt leaving the wheel slowly spinning in the air like a watchface gone mad, marking each frozen second she stayed.

She turned back to the man. He had opened his eyes at the sound and blinked slowly, focusing on the light like he was trying to pull himself back from somewhere else, somewhere dark and deep.

At first, his gaze drifted unfocused across the shifting leaves above, the blur of sky between branches, down the pale trunks until it caught on her with a clarity too sharp for someone on death’s door.

Her breath hitched, a shallow, sharp drag that barely filled her lungs. She glanced back at her fallen bike again, lying awkwardly across a carpet of rotting leaves. She should leave. Right now.

He seemed to have noticed the shift in her eyes. His voice came low, rough-edged and raw. “You gonna leave me here?” he asked.

She said nothing. The weight of his words sat in her chest, heavy as a stone. Her eyes trailing his gun.

He let out a breath that sounded like it scraped its way out of him. “I’m not gonna shoot you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Another breath followed, slower this time, pulled in through clenched teeth. “Can’t reach my sidearm anyway so you can either take it and finish me off… or help me.”

There was no plea in his voice. No desperation in his eyes. There was something about the way he said it felt like it didn’t matter to him which. A tired confession, an invitation to do whatever she could live with.

She didn’t mean to move forward. Not really, but one foot stepped, then another. Like something deep in her had already decided. The silence pressed in closer with every inch she moved, as if even the forest waited to see what she would do. Something about that made her chest tighten. It wasn’t sympathy that gripped her. It was something colder. Damage left untended. Pain survived in silence.

Her fingers twitched toward her pocket, brushing the edge of the small blade she kept folded deep inside. Not much, but enough to slow someone down if they got too close. She hesitated. She shouldn’t do this. She knew she shouldn’t. Every instinct screamed for her to turn. Still, she crouched down beside him, feeling the roots bite into her knees.

She glanced at the gun again, mostly out of reflex. The weapon sat at his hip like a coiled threat, quiet but present. The safety was on. She could tell without looking closely, the little glint of metal tilted just right. She didn’t think he was lying when he said he couldn’t reach it, but that didn’t mean she trusted him, didn’t trust his words.

The cheek wound was beyond her reach. The blood was dark where it had crusted into the skin. It had split unevenly, as if torn open in motion. Some fast brutal strike that didn’t stop clean. It needed stitches and whatever story it carried was etched there and would leave a mark that would remain long after this moment passed.

The side wound was worse. That was the one bleeding him out. Bullet wound, entry only. The fabric of his coat clung dark and heavy, still wet from the blood soaking through it. He was losing too much, too fast.

She had no equipment, just her hands, the fabric from his shirt and the bottle of water from her bag. She poured a little around the edges. Not enough to clean it. Maybe enough to keep it from turning septic, but probably not. The water carried thin lines of blood down the curve of his hip, disappearing into the leaves below.

His gaze stayed level, steady, as if her attention meant nothing. As if the blood drying on his skin belonged to someone else. “Name?” he asked suddenly, casual as if it was a checkpoint control.

She hesitated “Astrid.”

His eyes flicked to the bag beside her, still unzipped. The spine of her book peeked out. The Lionheart Brothers by Astrid Lindgren it read in letters embossed in faded gold.

His mouth twitched. “Astrid.” he repeated, tasting her lie.

She felt his eyes on her as she worked. She kept hers down. Focused on the wound. Because if she didn’t, she might see more than pain. She might see how close he really was. How intently he was watching. How little strength he wasted pretending otherwise.

“Don’t want to know mine?” he asked.

“No” she answered, quick, clipped and truthful.

That made him laugh, a short, rough sound that turned into a cough. He grimaced. She kept wrapping the makeshift bandage and didn’t notice the slow movement of his hand as it slipped into the front pouch of her satchel. A tremor ran through it, but he didn’t stop. His fingers brushed fabric, then something small, smooth and rectangular. His fingers close around it.

She tore the remaining strips from his shirt, pressed down. Wrapped them tight around his ribs tight enough to make him wince. He hissed between his teeth. Maybe she did it on purpose, then she capped the bottle and tucked it into her satchel.

“I can’t do more than this” she said as she rose. Her knees ached from kneeling so long, soaked through from the damp earth beneath them. She slung her satchel over her shoulder. A long pause stretched between them, like she was waiting for him to speak. Maybe to thank her. He said nothing, so she turned back to her bike and mounted it. She didn’t look back.

He eased back against the tree, breath still shallow, eyes fixed on the space where she’d vanished between the trunks. The object remained curled in his hand, the edges rigid against his palm, now smeared with blood. He hadn’t needed to look at it to know. The moment his fingers closed around it in the folds of her satchel, he knew exactly what it was.

//

Anton opened the door before she even reached for the handle. He didn’t yell, that wasn’t his way, but he stood there with his arms crossed and with eyes too old for someone not yet thirty. They were locked on her with the kind of fear that always wore the mask of anger.

“You were supposed to be home before the first siren.”

From the kitchen Lillium stepped into view, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. She was all warmth and freckles, her hand came to rest on the curve of her belly, soft and unmistakable beneath the fabric of her apron. “She’s back, Anton. That’s what matters.” She crossed the room and handed over a steaming mug of goatmilk without asking if she wanted one.

Anton didn’t budge, his voice stayed firm, but there was worry under it. “Where were you?”

She didn't answer straight away. Took a slow sip of the milk. It coated her mouth, warm and clean and oddly cruel against the memory of blood, the metallic scent still clinging faintly beneath her fingernails.

“I was by the river. Lost track of time. Took the shortcut back.” She didn’t lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

She sat down on the kitchen sofa. It creaked under her, the wooden frame tired from generations of use. Long and blue, padding worn, fabric thin and sun-faded.

Anton let out a frustrated breath, running his fingers through his hair. “Do you have any idea-” Lillium stepped in before the words could go further. Her hand found his arm, a light touch just above the elbow. A signal. Enough. Anton exhaled again, this time slower, heavier. The kind of breath that came from someone holding too much.

Silence stretched. Then Anton’s voice came again, this time lower.

“The convoy moved early.” he said and paused, looking out the window to the setting sun. “We heard from Severin. They had to strike today. At dawn. Just off the north road.”

Her fingers tightened around the mug. “Anyone get hurt?”

Anton gave a short nod, eyes lowering. “One.”

Something shifted in her throat. She swallowed it down. “Who?”

He hesitated, not long, but enough for her to feel it. “Solveig is dead” he said quietly. “Ibb and Kristoph are missing.”

She drew in breath hearing this, feeling a cold tremor pass through her body. Her eyes dropped to the table. She said nothing.

“There’ve been checkpoints all over town. I was worried. I thought you…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

No one said anything for a while.

It was a silence and a stillness that bloomed from a joint grief. The kitchen clock ticked in the background. Lillium stood by the counter, dishcloth still in her hand, but forgotten. Anton sat in his usual chair, his gaze on the far wall.

“Your new curfew is seven” He finally said.

The words settled, final like a district border. She kept her eyes downcast and nodded, edges of the mug held tightly between her hands. She watched the tiny swirl of margarine at the surface, drifting slowly like it didn’t know where to go either.

She didn’t move for a long time. Not until Lillium and Anton had gone to their room. Not until she heard the door click closed behind them.

She let out a slow sigh, the kind that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her lungs. Then she set her mug down and stood, pulled the cushion of the sofa up. The hinges creaked as she lifted the lid to the hollow compartment beneath it. Inside: a pillow, a blanket, a mattress.

She tucked herself in and stared at the low ceiling, listening. She could hear the murmurs of Lilium and Anton. Above her footsteps creaked, Lillium’s father Efraim moving from window to window in the attic space as the final curfew bell rang.

As the last daylights were bleeding away in a red glow outside. Her thoughts went back to the soldier in the forest.

He must have been part of the convoy. That was the simplest answer, but the more she thought about it, the less it settled. The convoy had been hit on the north road, the far side of the forest. So how had he ended up there? Miles off-course with no sign of vehicle. Bleeding under the birches like he’d been dropped there on purpose.

She stared at the ceiling and tried to follow the thread to its end, no answers came.

//

The med ward stank of ozone and burnt gauze. Somewhere a plasma needle buzzed. He sat still on the edge of the surgical cot, bare from the waist up and stared at the smooth object in his hand like it might vanish if he blinked.

It was worn. The plastic slightly split at the seam and now a faint smudge of his blood sat across the edge. His thumb moved across its ridged surface over and over in a slow rotation. Almost meditative.

He hadn’t let it go. Not during the field lift, not when they peeled off the fabric from his wound, not even when they patched it with a dermic sealer that hissed like a blowtorch on steel. The bandage over his ribs still steamed faintly in the cold light like his body was still cooking beneath it.

A sharp rap on the door broke the silence. It hissed open and Demillion stepped in. He took one look at him and smirked.

“You look like hell, Cas.” He nodded to the jagged line stretched across his sharp cheekbone. It would leave a scar. The blood was gone now, replaced by a sleek gel that glimmered faintly.

Demillion stepped closer, boots scuffing the floor and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “That ambush was a mess. Weapons lifted. Three enforcers dead. One missing-” he pointed at Cassian “-You.”

Cassian didn’t answer right away. He just kept thumbing the corner of the card. The edge scraped softly against his finger in a quiet rhythm, barely audible above the low hum of the monitor behind him.

He finally spoke: “I think someone knew where we’d be.”

Demillion’s smirk fell flat. He glanced at the closed door behind him and back to Cassian, mouth pulled into a thin line. “So it’s true. One of ours has gone rogue?”

Cassian continued to thumb the corner of the card as he gave a slow nod.

Demillion followed his gaze to the object in his hand. “Who is that?” he asked, nodding toward it.

Cassian finally looked up, the light caught the hard line of his jaw. “Patched me up when she could’ve let me bleed out” he said, voice flat. “Called herself Astrid. That part was a lie.”

He held up the card. The name printed on the back gleamed faintly beneath the smudge of dried blood.

Demillion leaned in, his brow furrowed. “No clearance marker. Civilian” He frowned at the name “Lyra Elwin” he read out loud. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Think she knew who you were?”

Cassian didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his hand around the card like he might lose it. She hadn’t broken any law by being there. She had helped him too. But she’d lied, that’s what stuck.

If she meant to run, she should’ve run. If she meant to help, she should’ve told the truth. She hadn’t done either. And now, beneath the pain and medication and half-healed bone, something burned in him.

A sudden, quiet, need to know why.